


Perspective, or Some Shit

by weezly14



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 13:38:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1430467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl-centric musings. "And it's shitty, ain't it, that the thing that saved his life is the thing that's destroyed everyone else's."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perspective, or Some Shit

**Author's Note:**

> First foray into The Walking Dead fandom. Not sure how well I got Daryl's voice. Enjoy.

            Some character in some movie he saw what feels like years ago said something about some men just wanting to watch the world burn. He thinks maybe he used to be one of those people. Could’ve been. ‘Nother life. Version of this life.

            But this? Watching the ghost of Christmas past burn to the ground, feeling her smiling at him, wide and bright and inexplicably not so goddamn _broken_ , after everything?

            Ain’t the same thing at all.

\---

            Sometimes he catches himself thinking this whole mess is the best thing that ever could’ve happened to him. Not the—not the _this_ , with her, but the—the everything. World gone to shit. Dead walking, living losing their humanity, sleeping with one eye open and ears never closed. A nightmare come true, but he thinks it saved him.

            And it helped, some, these thoughts, back at the prison, back when things were all right, back when he was— _happy_ ’s a strong word, maybe not that, but—but now, now he catches himself thinking it as he catches himself watching her and it’s shitty, ain’t it, how the thing that saved his life is the thing that’s destroyed everyone else’s. How it took a zombie apocalypse to get him out, get him away, get him getting better.

            ‘Cause he is getting better, he thinks, and it’s a lot of things, it’s people, these people, those people, the people he—

            And, yeah. Her. Her most, maybe. Most recently, at least.

            And sometimes he even finds himself thinking ‘bout everything that got them here, events that led to her and him wandering around this godforsaken forest, finds himself thinking there are worst things, that he can live with this, that if they never find the others, never find anyone else, he’d be—

            He looks at her, sometimes, and something in him wants, wants in a way he’s not used to, doesn’t understand, doesn’t feel anything like what he grew up around, what he’s had before. Something like her smiling at him, and holding his hand, and listening when he talks and not getting offended or prying when he doesn’t. Like wanting her to feel safe with him, and not just ‘cause he’s good with a bow and a knife, not just ‘cause they ended up together.

            He looks at her and he sees her daddy’s head getting chopped off and he hates himself for almost thanking that man’s God, months ago, for delivering him, for this, if it meant he got _them_. For being so goddamned _content_ , or something, with how it’s all going—been going—gone—since the moonshine and the fire and the way it cemented everything he’d been—

            World went to shit and he fell in with good people for the first time in his life, and he’s becoming people like them, better people than he ever would’ve been before.

            But sometimes, he thinks he’s the only one.

\---

            Some nights he stays up thinking about it. ‘Bout what it says about him. Kind of people that thrive anymore.

\---

            Other nights, he wakes up scared he’ll turn her into someone like him. That while he’s changing, she’ll change, too, but not—because he was practically made for this new world and she’s the sort of person would’ve been crushed by it before, and that scares him almost as much as losing her. Losing _her_ —what makes her—makes her so—

            He’s not sure he could handle either one, honestly.

\---

            Ain’t before, though, is it? Before matters less and less these days.

\---

            Matters even less when she takes his hand, laces her fingers with his.

\---

            After’s where they’re going, after’s _now_ , the present, this moment and—

_Oh._

            And—

\---

            And—

\---

            After:

\---

            “I was with Beth,” he tells him.

            “We got out together,” he explains.

            “Was with her for a while,” he finishes.

            Because anything else would be too, much or not enough. Or maybe it don’t even matter anymore anyway.

            Before and after. Matter of perspective or some shit. Probably heard that in a movie, too. Years ago. Lifetimes ago. Life ain’t no damn romance novel. ‘Specially not this one. He knows how that story ends.

            “Is she dead?”

            How this ends.

            “She’s just gone.”

\---

            (Some nights, he thinks this is worse.)

           


End file.
